Cause I'm Too Chicken to Say it in Person

Tag Archives: food

I like food. I am currently successfully battling my food demons. As of right now, I am back on the wagon, on week 4 of Weight Watchers and have lost 3 lbs. That’s pretty good for me. My goal is not to lose my ass and thighs, that’s a forevermore for this girl, but I’d like three things to go away. First and foremost, the baby belly. Second, the double chin aka the Waddle. Third, I need to dump the chubby arms and get my rockin swimmer arms back. The kind I had 10 years ago whilst waiting tables and bartending. The arms that came from 12 hour shifts, trays of food, moving kegs of beer and full bus tubs. I want to sell tickets to the gun show. $50 a pop.

About a week ago, one of Will’s after-school caregivers asked me if I was going to have a baby. If that’s not a kick in the pants, I don’t know what is. It hurt. It made me feel bad, which makes it even worse because I was feeling pretty good about myself up until that point in the day. Was it stupid for her to ask? Hell yes. Was it a crazy statement? Not so much. It’s where my weight has settled. Babies have left and food has taken their place. My food baby. God I love that food baby. It might help if I wasn’t constantly touching it and resting my hand on it, much like I did when I was pregnant. It’s just fascinating that so much can just dwell there. I have to admit, I am constantly poking at it, grabbing handfuls of it when I sit down and look around for a pair of scissors, because that’s what I want to do, just trim it off. Can’t hurt that much right? See how lazy I am? I’d rather CUT my fat off with SCISSORS instead of GASP! walking away from that donut or getting on a treadmill a few times a week.

Since the food baby question, I have been more motivated than ever, so thank you naïve young daycare girl, you made me hit bottom. Time to look up and start taking care of myself. I want to like me. I want my kids to know that I like myself. And I want to make my husband happy, which is not the hard part. He really likes chubby girls. His big fear is that I’ll get “too skinny” and lose my ass. Don’t worry honey, it’s not going anywhere. I’ll never be my teenage self (save maybe the acne, which come on, give a girl a break! I’m 33, when does it end?), but I would like to be a leaner version of me. One that doesn’t use rouching on swimsuits as extra material to fill. I want the actual rouching to come back and be just that, cute wrinkles in the front.

As a testament to my commitment and a way to keep up the motivation, here Internet, is a picture of me NOW. You know, so I can mail it to Weight Watchers and have them ask me to be a spokeswoman, cause you know, they don’t have enough celebrities who’ve just had babies 30 seconds before who want to join. Just so you know, I made pregnant cankles sexy WAAAY before Kim K. You stole my sausage feet Kim!

No, I didn’t buy this dress. My sister talked me out of it after I texted this pic to her. Gotta love sisters. They tell it like it’s fat.

A good example of “the Waddle.” Yeah, the skinny bitch next to me makes it look worse. I blame her completely. 😛

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, or more likely beating a bag of M&Ms, but I have food issues. This weekend, being Easter, only highlighted these issues, and with this past week being a combo pre-holiday, Aunt Flo week, all bets were off.

For those you also obsessed with vampire shows, I often compare myself in vampire folklore terms. Take Vampire Diaries, where they have this nifty thing that if you are a vampire and life gets too unbearable, you have a “humanity switch.” This switch can be flipped and will let said vampire turn off their emotions and just live without feeling anything. Very good for upping the drama factor and making good girls and boys look cool doing bad things and excusing it later type thing.

Hmm. Damon. Just because.

My “switch” that I oftentimes turn off pertains to food. It’s what I would term my “self-control” switch. The one that tells me, Hey Jen, why don’t you stop at the first row of Oreo’s, that’s plenty dontcha think? Or maybe, Hey girl, how about we not eat our weight in candy today mkay? The inside voice that shuts down my inner voice that can justify eating anything as long as no one sees me doing it. Like a tree in the woods, if no one sees me wreck that plate of cookies, did it really just happen?

I battle to keep this switch on every single day, and sometimes, the fight just goes out of me. I stress eat. I tired eat. I bored eat. I eat because if someone doesn’t eat those ice cream sandwiches currently in my fridge, no one will. I am always thinking about food. I know it’s unhealthy, but therapy is freakin expensive, and I currently can’t afford to pay someone to listen to me whine about food, which in turn, will only make me hungry.

I feel like food is a drug I can’t quit. Besides I can’t quit, we humans technically need it to survive, and besides, it would completely put me in a whole other psychological mess category, and I’ve tried not eating, it doesn’t work. Usually a half hour in, I’m like, I’M DYING, MY STOMACH IS STARTING TO EAT MY LIVER, GET ME SOME FOOD, and I end up eating half the McDonald’s menu, which by the way McD’s thanks for the calorie count buzzkill on the menus now. I prefer ignorance; I know your restaurant is not good for me, please stop preaching it when I am trying to get my Double-cheese on. (Quiet KQ, I am not eating your ridiculous apples. What’s the point? You took away the caramel months ago, which almost caused complete anarchy in my backseat by the way, a little warning would have been nice.)

I will jump back on the wagon tomorrow. I will once again try to be good, but another stumbling block I face is even when I am super good, drink water like a camel, love me some fruits and veggies, and eat smaller quantities, I lose approximately 1 pound. I was awesomely good for the entire months of February and March (with the exception of last week, doesn’t count, see above Shark Week and Easter combo). I ate well, worked out three to four times a week, I didn’t eat at night, and I actually choked down my 8 glasses of water every day. I only lost 4 freakin pounds. Now, in this time, I did feel pretty darn great, my muffin top got smaller, I did have more energy and other things, but it’s HARD when you just don’t see the results on the scale or start to get Madonna arms after like 10 whole pushups.

Another problem is I LOVE food. Not good food mind you. Crap food. I love Little Debbie’s, Chef Boy R Dee, anything chocolate, and anything pre-packaged and convenient. I hate thinking ahead and planning. I hate vegetables. I am the person that buys like $30 of fresh fruits and veggies at the store on Saturday and am throwing them away untouched on Friday to make way for the next cycle. If I can’t grab it, rip the top off the container and shove it down my gullet, I am not eating it. Nachos are awesome to me, but only on special days, because those are a lot of work. Probably not wondering anymore why my cholesterol is 265 are you?

This post is a cry for help. I need motivation. I need something. I have only one idea left. Basically I need people in all areas of my life shaming me into not eating badly. I need people judging me at get togethers. I need people at work to call me names when I am gorging on donuts and M&Ms. I need to know I am being watched, or else I won’t quit. Nighttime is the hardest, but I guess I’m on my own there. But if I can make it the rest of the day, I might just have enough willpower to finish the day strong.

I have to do something. I am killing myself. I am teaching my kids awful food habits. I want to put dinners on the table every night, not just mac and cheese and nuggets. I need to get my butt in gear and grow up. I am 33 years old and it is time to get organized. I bet there’s something on Pinterest for that, and most likely, I pinned it months ago, and then went back to funny memes without reading it. So, I issue my inner circle a challenge: watch me, comment on my eating, shame me, it’s the only way I will stop, or at least get started down the right path. I will warn you though, in approximately 28 days, if I come at you looking for chocolate, you best move out of my way, because this week can make me violent.

Happy Easter everyone!

UPDATE 4/1/13: Just called the doctor’s office to get my updated cholesterol bloodwork results and I am down from 265 to 216 just with the dieting and exercising I am doing! There’s a little motivation to not jump off the wagon! I may be fat, but by God, I am making myself healthier! Yay! No meds yet for me.

Like this:

Just sitting here on a Saturday night, watching my husband play Modern Warfare with his geek virgin friends also gaming on a Saturday night. I am trying to get him to change his avatar name to RPatz4eva, but he isn’t buying it, so I thought I’d write about my ongoing obsession with food.

Food. I love food. Unfortunately, I am surrounded by people who also have the same problem as me, and a husband who has no idea what healthy cooking is, and let’s face it, his way of cooking is delicious and irresistible. Plus, when he cooks, I am not, and I hate cooking, no matter what my Pinterest page says. He cooks bacon by the pound and thinks that if he tells me not to eat it, that will somehow stop me from punching him in his junk to get past him to the bacon….or the cupcakes…or ice cream….whatever. The stuff just can not be in the house. So that way when the time comes, like now at 10 p.m. at night and I am desperately rummaging through my cabinets in search of crap, I find none, and have to eat a Nutrigrain bar or worse, an apple. But no, I have approximately 5 lbs. of Halloween candy that I totally pushed my kids to trudge up and down blocks and blocks of soggy wet, cold weather so I could eat it all when they go to bed. And I don’t just have a piece, no, I eat until I am slightly nauseous. The day after Halloween, I ate three pieces for breakfast. Breakfast. Seriously.

I have this really annoying guy at work, who’s all into working out and eating healthy, telling me on Friday that I should eat Chia seeds (yeah, like the Pet, which by the way, totally sells me on EATING them (sense the sarcasm), which are super healthy and delicious and he feels great all the time and has great energy. This guy also doesn’t eat the donuts on Tuesdays and “splurges” on the bagels on Friday, and always frowns and gets all judgey when the rest of us are gorging ourselves on the free chocolates a vendor dropped off, or the awesome spinach artichoke dip our co-worker makes. Grrr. Insert eye roll here and sarcastic comment about the ability to put the seeds on a donut and I exit the conversation. Healthy people are annoying. People who don’t exist to eat annoy me. Don’t talk to me about being healthy. I know how to eat, what to eat and how much to be a healthy, energetic, happy, fit woman. I know this. I know that when I work out I feel better. I know when I drink tons of water, I crave less sugary junk. I know that de-sugaring gets easier after the first week, but I always fall back into it. I love it. I love food. I am the fat kid with cake. It’s like my crack, except at least you can give up crack and never see it again. Food you need to live. I should eat to live right? No way, I come from a long line of living to eat. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for God’s sake. How fat is that??? Forget presents, family time, just give me Grandma’s homemade stuffing and some pumpkin pie and I am in heaven.

I want to be like you healthy people. I don’t want to eat candy like it’s my job. I don’t want to crave crap food like Chef Boyardee and Swiss Cake Rolls. I don’t want to love regular Pepsi, which btw, is free at work. They are accomplices with my husband in the conspiracy to kill me. (To my credit, I have kicked this habit. I still love me some pop, but at least I can tolerate Diet with the help of transitioning through Coke Zero. God bless you sugar substitute, BUT, have I lost weight? Negative. Annoying.) But, I still drink pop, at least 2 a day, and I hate water with a passion. Yuck, so boring. And apparently the aspartame in Crystal Light negates the water I am consuming (so says healthy work guy), so that’s not a good compromise. No, it has to be the boring flavorless water, or nothing.

I don’t want to go into serious depression for the two months that Netty’s is closed to sell Christmas trees, even though I am lactose intolerant and spend most of the 2 a.m. hour cursing my medium swirl soft serve cone. It’s totally worth the pain, and I will do it again and again. But then, do I feel working out is worth the same pain? Not enough to do it more than 3X in a row. Just ask my sister, who when I told I was running in the mornings, laughed out loud because I had only done it twice so far, and she knew, just knew, it wouldn’t last much longer…and she was right. I didn’t do it again.

So anyways, here I am fighting the good fight. Problem is, my cholesterol is still sky-high and I keep gaining weight. I have to do something soon or my husband will be raising my kids alone, which scares me because I see zip ties as Gracie’s ponytail holders and Will never being able to pursue dance like I totally know he wants. So, therefore, I have to do SOMETHING. Any ideas? Mark has offered to punch me in the face when I open the fridge in a Pavlonian-dog type of training, but I think the outside world would frown on my black eyes. And really, if there is anything pumpkin in that fridge, I’ll take the black eye. I’ve thought of hypnotism, but that hypnotist has be freakishly good at their job for my subconscious to out talk my conscious brain heading for a late night Ben & Jerry’s.

Well, writing this helped curb my current obsession with eating, maybe I should just post an ode to food every night I get these cravings? …Wait, nevermind. Just re-read and really want some Ben & Jerry’s.